- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- The
highest-ranking U.S. soldier to be court-martialled in Baghdad's notorious
Abu Ghraib jail case Wednesday admitted beating and humiliating prisoners,
including forcing some to masturbate.
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- Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick told the hearing at a military
camp on the outskirts of Baghdad he had been trying to prepare the detainees
for interrogation.
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- Frederick, 38, pleaded guilty to five charges, including
indecent acts and dereliction of duty and assault. But he denied some of
the details.
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- "I was wrong about what I did and I shouldn't have
done it. I knew it was wrong at the time because I knew it was a form of
abuse," Frederick told the court.
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- The charges relate to three incidents in October and
November last year. In one, naked prisoners were piled into a pyramid,
an incident that became notorious when photos were published in April,
provoking worldwide outrage.
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- Frederick admitted forcing three detainees to masturbate,
saying of one: "I grabbed him by the elbow and put it on his penis
and moved it back and forth. I lifted his hood and gave him a hand gesture,
telling him to keep doing it himself."
-
- The army reservist painted a picture of life inside the
jail in which prisoners were stripped naked, sometimes dressed in women's
underwear and physically and mentally abused.
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- He also told how Iraqi police smuggled in guns and drugs
for prisoners and how he was too scared to report the abuses.
-
- "I was afraid of retaliation by other soldiers.
We all walked around with loaded weapons. It was very high stress,"
he said.
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- SOME CHARGES DROPPED
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- Frederick said on one occasion he punched a prisoner
in the chest after a female guard had been attacked. The prisoner was so
badly hurt he needed resuscitating. Frederick attached wires to another
prisoner, telling him he could be electrocuted.
-
- Judge Colonel James Pohl is due to sentence Frederick
on Thursday. In return for pleading guilty, some charges have been dropped,
Frederick's lawyer Gary Myers said.
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- Frederick said he had watched as other soldiers piled
naked prisoners into a human pyramid last November. Asked by Pohl if he
took photographs, he said: Yes. Once."
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- Frederick, a prison guard in civilian life, appeared
calm and confident throughout the hearing.
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- He is the third soldier to be court-martialled over the
Abu Ghraib affair. The first two also pleaded guilty and have been sentenced
to between eight months and a year in jail.
-
- In all, seven military police personnel and an intelligence
soldier have been indicted for involvement in the abuses.
-
- A top-level U.S. inquiry blamed the military chain of
command, right up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for creating conditions
that allowed the abuses to take place.
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